Experian, launched its Data View service earlier this week to help companies identify and solve data-quality problems inside their databases.

Experian, a $1.5 billion credit services company, based in Orange, Calif., jumped into the CRM arena in September 2000, with the formation of Experian Integrated Services. Since then it has been quietly building data cleansing applications that can compare and clean information in customer databases by matching the data with its list of up-to-date information on 205 million consumers from its credit services division.

Its latest service from Experian Integrated Solutions, called Data View, evaluates a company's overall quality of customer data and provides a plan to unravel complex data errors and remove them from the organization. The service identifies data-quality issues that may contribute to wasted marketing expenditures, such as poor address quality and mismatched customer data.

"As more companies understand their data needs, the contribution of analytical tools and professional services in offerings like Data View will become increasingly apparent to the success of corporate CRM initiatives," said Joanna Kuo, executive vice president of Experian Integrated Solutions, in a prepared statement. "Data's contribution to CRM success should be viewed with the same importance as software-and-business processes."

The Data View process comprises three steps, including a data-quality and content review, data-use workshops, and data profiles. Data View is offered on a stand-alone basis or as part of an integrated CRM solution with Truvue, Experian's customer data-integration technology, or Experian's Hosted CRM Solutions.